How to Beat Procrastination and Distraction with a Stopwatch

As it often happens to all of us, one major reason behind our unproductive selves is that we are unable to focus at work and keep procrastinating. Well, it’s not just the problem of one or two working adults in today’s modern age, rather most of us have the same sort of issues. However, it’s not like that there is no solution to this problem and you have to live with it. Rather, a trick as simple as using a stopwatch can help you focus better and improve your productivity at work.

Studies suggest that using a reliable stopwatch or anonline time clock helps professionals stay ahead of their work schedules. And, the best part is that it’s not so difficult at all to put your routine like that. In fact, there are a few simple steps that you need to take and you’ll be able to get things right quite easily. Let’s check out how it works.

Write It All Down

Yes, when you have to use a stopwatch to beat procrastination and distraction at work, the first thing you need to do is to write down all the specifics of every task that you have to complete. It will help you focus better on the job at hand and you will know each and every bit of what you are dealing with.

Assign A Timeline

The whole idea behind using a stopwatch and challenging yourself to keep your focus intact is to ensure that you are able to do it within a specific amount of time. So, it is important that every task that you have written down on your list for the day is given a certain timeline in which you have to try and complete it. However, there is no need of getting worried at this point because you just have to come up with an estimate here.

Do Not Watch It Once The Timer Starts

Next, you need to set a timer and an alarm that will sound once the timer has elapsed telling you that you must have completed your task by now. Remember here that this timer can be the source of productivity but it may even backfire to become the biggest distraction for you. Yes, it’s quite a funny thing but that’s how it goes. So, you must make sure that as soon as you have started the timer, you must only focus at completing the job and not look at the timer again and again to see how much time you have left to complete the job. That’s the key here and if you are able to do that then you’ll surely beat procrastination and distraction.

Figure Out The Effectiveness

Finally, as soon as your timer alarm goes off, determine if you were able to finish the job quicker and better or not. The next step would be to simply put your stopwatch to rest and try to complete the same job within that timeframe without it. It will surely help you find out how effective this whole exercise has proven to be and whether you should be using it in future or recommending it to others as well or not. If the results were exactly as you had expected, then you should definitely go for it again whenever you feel distracted.

So, the idea behind this entire exercise is that if you have that believe in you that you’ll be able to finish the task quickly rather than leaving it for the last moment, the timeline you have available to you won’t be a hurdle anymore for you in taking the initiative and beginning the job in the first place. Besides, you don’t continue to believe that you have so much of time left and you can do it any time before it’s actually too late. When you have set your time limits, you actually have a definitive end to every task, and even when you are exceeding the time limit only by a little margin you can keep telling yourself that you are very close and just about to finish before you are actually able to do that. It’s quite natural that when you are just at the end of something, your mind responds quickly and you have the motivation to finish it quickly. You can keep switching schedules and time limits to make it a bit more fun and be able to complete your jobs within the designated amount of time as well without procrastinating at all.

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